A permanent difficulty for the teleological argument is the existence of evil, particularly of pain, waste, and the missing of apparent ends. If stress is laid on the "working towards ends" which are good, stress should equally be laid upon the working towards ends which to us appear to be bad. Additional weight has been given to this objection by the evolutionary theory of the origin of species through the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. The Darwinian theory of evolution seems to make death, defeat, and their concomitant pain, a necessary part of the evolutionary process. On these and other grounds it has been held, by Guyau, Bertrand Russell and many others, that there is neither beneficent nor maleficent purpose in the world, but that Nature is indifferent to the hopes, aspirations and needs of man. Some answer to these objections may be attempted. It is argued, for example, that the amount of pain in the lower orders of creation has been greatly exaggerated by the tendency to interpret the experience of the lower animals in terms of our own, and by the neglect of the consideration that the pains of anticipation are absent in sub-human creatures. Suffering in human beings again may be supposed to serve spiritual ends (see James Martineau, A Study of Religion). The most conclusive answer attempted to the problem of evil as an objection to a teleologically ordered universe is that of Leibniz, who maintained that this is the "best of all possible worlds." Any other world would have contained more evil and less good than the actually existing one. This view depends upon Leibniz's conception of the nature of possibility which, according to him, is determined, not by the arbitrary will of God, but by "eternal verities" which are absolutely valid for the Eternal Mind. Thus out of an infinite number of possible worlds the Creator chose that which included the greatest sum of good, and the evils in it exist as necessary conditions for the greater sum of good. This theory has been somewhat unfairly summed up by F. H. Bradley in the epigram, "The world is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary evil." We may remark here that our view of the teleological argu ment will be profoundly affected by our view of the meaning of "good" and "value." If we are "hedonists," believing that good means pleasure and the absence of pain, the teleological argument will have little weight. The Universe is plainly not designed to afford the greatest possible degree of pleasurable feeling. If on the other hand, we conceive that value means the development of spiritual and moral persons the argument will appear in a different and more favourable light.
The rise of the evolutionary concept has had another and even more important effect on the teleological argument. The prin ciple of the adaptation of species to their environment by survival of those best adapted has removed the favourite examples of teleology, such as the eye, from the sphere of directly created things and offered a "natural" explanation of their delicate adjust ment. The Darwinian and post-Darwinian theories of biological evolution seemed to destroy the basis of the most popular argu ment for Theism. It was evident that if the argument was valid at all it needed complete restatement. Post-evolutionary exponents of the teleological argument have consequently laid stress, not on particular instances of apparent design, but on the general trend of evolution which, it is maintained, can only be explained by the hypothesis of Divine Providence. A subtle statement of this line of thought is to be found in Lord Balfour's writings, the Founda tions of Belief and Humanism and Theism, in which he urges that, unless there is some intelligent guidance of evolution, the values of truth and beauty cannot be maintained.
The philosophical analysis of the idea of evolution in the present century has led many thinkers to abandon a purely mechanical conception of its method. The problem of newness and the development of values has engaged attention. M. Bergson has completely abandoned the mechanical view and substituted the idea of "creative evolution," new types of existence being in his theory the result of the effort of the Elan Vital to achieve free dom. Somewhat analogous is the conception of "emergent evolu tion" which was worked out by Professor S. Alexander and Professor C. Lloyd Morgan and adopted by several other English authorities. The "emergent" theory of evolution distinguishes between two types of effect, "resultants" which are the predictable outcome of previously existing conditions, and "emergents" which are specifically new and not completely predictable. New species, and in particular new types of being, such as life, consciousness and self-consciousness, would thus belong to the "emergent" type of effect. None of these writers would describe his view of evolu tion as definitely teleological, and Bergson is as much opposed to teleology as to mechanism; but it is obvious that such conceptions of evolution are leading in the direction of at least "immanent teleology"; and it may be argued that a purely immanent teleology is not by itself an intelligible conception. On the whole then, it may be said that the movement of thought is in favour of a restatement of the teleological argument.
The inherent tendency of the human mind to think in the teleological mode suggests that there is really an a priori element in the argument. The mind is irresistibly impelled to regard the Universe as rational, i.e., as pervious to its categories and methods of thought. On this irresistible assumption or "act of faith" the whole structure of science is built. It is one further step in the same process to regard the Universe as rational in the fullest sense, i.e., as a teleological system which exists for an end which we can accept as reason for its existence—the production of values or of good.
The Ontological Argument.—This is the only one among the traditional "proofs" which is explicitly a priori. It is the inference from the idea of God to the existence of God, and does not employ any data derived from observation. The argument, though adumbrated by S. Augustine, was first clearly presented by S. Anselm (1033-1109) in his work the Proslogium. Even the fool "who says in his heart, there is no God" has the idea of God, otherwise he would not be able to deny His existence. The idea of God is the idea of "that than which no greater can be con ceived" (id quo nihil majus cogitari potest). Now this idea can not be in the understanding alone, because if it were, it would not be the idea of that than which there can be nothing greater, for a Being who existed would be greater than a being who did not exist. (It should be noticed that majus does not mean simply magnitude but includes value.) In other words, the idea of the greatest conceivable implies the existence of that Greatest. The obvious objection to this line of reasoning was raised by Gaunilo during Anselm's lifetime in his Liber pro Insipiente. Gaunilo dissente'd from the passage from idea to existence, and adduced the famous illustration of the "perfect island," which he argued, on Anselm's principle, must exist. The essence of Anselm's reply to this objection is to draw a distinction between that which is the greatest conceivable absolutely and that which is the greatest only relatively as the member of a class. The idea of God is the idea of "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" abso lutely, and to this idea alone the ontological argument applies.